Červeno-zelená struktura, 1966

CommentaryDespite the Stalinist doctrine of state-mandated Socialist Realism, artists in the Eastern Bloc countries continued to create abstract art. In the early nineteen-sixties, the Czech artist Zdeněk Sýkora developed an innovative Constructivist approach. The artist was inspired to dissolve pictorial composition by the lines and patterns in the works of Henri Matisse, which he had encountered in the State Hermitage. Sýkora initially experimented with grids of dichromatic circles, squares, or triangles. ›Structure Red-Green‹ is one of the first pictures made by the artist with the help of a computer. Sýkora collaborated with the mathematician Jaroslav Blažek to write a computer program that he could use to try out different variations on random distribution. After deciding on a variation, he transferred this design to the canvas. Following a certain viewing period, systems and groups can be discerned amid the apparent chaos, such as marginal zones and centrally situated calm areas. The strong discrepancy between the fragmentation of the visual elements and the size of the canvas fosters glimmering and an abstract sense of spatiality that embrace the beholder.

Despite the Stalinist doctrine of state-mandated Socialist Realism, artists in the Eastern Bloc countries continued to create abstract art. In the early nineteen-sixties, the Czech artist Zdeněk Sýkora developed an innovative Constructivist approach. The artist was inspired to dissolve pictorial composition by the lines and patterns in the works of Henri Matisse, which he had encountered in the State Hermitage. Sýkora initially experimented with grids of dichromatic circles, squares, or triangles. ›Structure Red-Green‹ is one of the first pictures made by the artist with the help of a computer. Sýkora collaborated with the mathematician Jaroslav Blažek to write a computer program that he could use to try out different variations on random distribution. After deciding on a variation, he transferred this design to the canvas. Following a certain viewing period, systems and groups can be discerned amid the apparent chaos, such as marginal zones and centrally situated calm areas. The strong discrepancy between the fragmentation of the visual elements and the size of the canvas fosters glimmering and an abstract sense of spatiality that embrace the beholder.